


Poems

by CryingKilljoy



Category: Original Work
Genre: Depressing, Gen, Original Poetry - Freeform, Poetry, Sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-06-09 19:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 11,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6920272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryingKilljoy/pseuds/CryingKilljoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of my original poems. Please do not redistribute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

This is a collection of poems I've written. Some are from earlier years (meaning they'll be absolutely terrible), and others are more recent. They are going to be sad, so if you're triggered by those kinds of themes, please review your comfort zone accordingly.

My name's Dakota (he/they) and oh my _god_ I sound so s a d and pretentious let's stop and just get into this


	2. The Great War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A poem I wrote in sixth grade. It narrates the conflicts between the good and bad conscience.

Your tricky ways are quite unnerving,

I must say you do your job well,

but why must you contradict mine,

to make bad people swell?

 

I am the horrible conscience,

as you so readily pointed out,

but it is also my requirement,

to make good people shout.

 

**I believe in happiness,**

**in blooming eternal love,**

**that there will always be something for us,**

**an altruistic angel above.**

 

What terrible things you indulge in,

what’s it like inside your brain?

Terribly empty and vacant,

I’d prefer acid rain.

 

**You may enjoy the thunder,**

**buckets and buckets of hate,**

**but that will get you nowhere,**

**someone must change your gait.**

 

Who are you to say,

how my conscience will turn out?

It’s becoming increasingly simple

to kill you without a doubt.

 

**I am utterly done with you,**

**may this riot be no more,**

**I do not do stable business,**

**with those who start a war.**

 

**So this truce may be,**

**let us weary soldiers shake hands,**

**the battlefield is destroyed,**

**and our burning conflict is canned.**


	3. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another poem I wrote in sixth grade using rhyme and meter, which I have since abandoned partially.

The leaves swirl down in green, vibrant ways,

staying on the ground for countless days,

no one to pick them up or give them the care,

so they will be stuck, just sitting right there

 

Until one day, a deer picks them right up,

up with her teeth and continues to strut,

strut to the forest where she will reside,

the forest where no one dares to preside

 

The leaves were soon dropped, without any care

and they were then found by a scavenging hare,

she picked them right up, to her burrow she roams,

where she could give the leaves a flourishing home

 

The leaves were soon dropped, without any spite,

to do as they please, to do as they might,

an owl soon came, to his tree he flew,

so the leaves could have a home anew

 

The leaves were soon dropped, and there they sat,

no one came, not even a gnat,

and they lay there forever, where they may rest,

and the forest is marked with the homeless, green crest.


	4. Snow Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last of the poems I wrote in sixth grade, narrating a child's connection with a snow angel.

Snow came down the first time today,

blanketing the faded plain of grass,

and a shadow came to play with me,

until the snow should pass

 

She said her name was Snow,

and I figured that’s what she was,

a figment of imagination,

a faint, conceptual buzz

 

Then she soon disappeared,

and the snow withered like a tree,

but she will always be the Snow Angel,

deep inside of me

 

The memories soon died,

and I learned to grow up,

until one day she returned,

her timing quite abrupt

 

But she was always there,

the whisper in the wind,

she will never leave,

to make sure snow will win


	5. Dead on Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dead on arrival: when a patient arrives at a hospital, already dead
> 
> Poem written 21 April, 2016

You loved too many horrors, and your hopes and dreams are gone,

with the dishes in the grimy sink and the television on.

I'm sorry that you're like this, and I'm sorry that you stayed,

I'm sorry that you're waiting here while the dictator is paid.

There are far too many violets, blood under your nails,

but you’re pouring out your froth and tabs like decade aging ale.

And why you must appease them is a mystery to me,

but once you're drunk and in a grave, your soul will then be free.

So it doesn’t really matter much, what you do upon this earth,

because as far as your spiteful demons know, you’ve been dead long since your birth.


	6. Clairvoyant Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clairvoyant: above normal human perception, especially with the supernatural
> 
> Poem written 21 May, 2016

Clairvoyant calls ringing out like a bell,

Clairvoyant calls speaking of hell,

Clairvoyant calls who reign high above,

Clairvoyant calls who stow away love,

Clairvoyant calls that no one believes,

Clairvoyant calls that never leave,

Clairvoyant calls who whimper and snap,

Clairvoyant calls put ghosts in a trap,

Clairvoyant calls imprisoned in hate,

Clairvoyant calls who open the gate,

Clairvoyant calls who laugh in your face,

Clairvoyant calls whose pride you erase,

Clairvoyant calls coming back for you soon,

Clairvoyant calls splintering the moon,

Clairvoyant calls knocking at your door,

Clairvoyant calls who are no more,

Clairvoyant calls see blood and decay,

Clairvoyant calls that led you astray,

Clairvoyant calls are doing their job,

Clairvoyant calls who are twisting the knob,

Clairvoyant calls know nothing of fear,

Clairvoyant calls perplexed by a tear,

Clairvoyant calls who snatch you away,

Clairvoyant calls who destroy the day,

Clairvoyant calls put a mask on,

Clairvoyant calls are never really gone.


	7. Explore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poem written 21 May, 2016

You can grasp the honeyed warmth of

childhood,

the fluttering lark of your ambition,

swinging from tree branches that will soon subside into

nothingness,

into concepts you have not yet explored.

 

You will sputter with protest,

furnished by the froth of ignorance,

crying that you have explored it all

when you know nothing of

anguish,

of gasping on the bathroom floor

whose tiles aren’t nearly as cold as you,

treasures that await the dark side of your youth.

 

Surely you have explored so much!

Alas, you are forever this child,

and as this child you explored the dips and turns of the

trees

and the dips and turns of your very

bones.

conviviality the marrow too sweet to

swallow.

But who knew that you,

a playful enchantress,

would become the bitch of melancholy?

 

Sadness is so solitary that it does not need you,

and it must be conflicting,

because you feel so empty,

when in reality,

it’s just sadness’ vacancy,

and you are safer than you think.

 

And as you glance past the dinner parties of people caged by

taxes and politics,

you laugh because that is not you.

And then your approaching wilderness laughs

because you are caged by something greater.

 

Something that will snatch you from the bed of joy

and throw you to the rain-slicked streets.

Something that will ensure that you catch against

the vindictive pebbles whose wit is sharpened by the rain.

Something that will invade your head

and leave the blame to yourself.

Because with taxes and politics,

the government is at fault.

But with demons and stones,

there is only you.

 

Weep, child,

weep!

For your branches are

snapping!

And your bones are

breaking!

You have no companion

besides the demons in your mind,

but even they have dug a grave to escape you.

You are brittle in your neglect yet more so in your

knowledge,

but isn’t this what you wanted? To

_ explore _ ?

 

Are you just now finding that the peak of your exploration

is sobbing behind a silhouette striding undisputed

through the halls of other people’s obliviousness?

What about cracking your arm like a twig

falling  _ from  _ those twigs in an ascendent betrayal?

Do you not deserve

_ more _ ?

 

Well you explored,

and now you are ignorant to happiness.

And you are so  _ bare _ that you aren’t even sorry.


	8. Deity

Rise, young one,

Rise!

Rise from the cackling dirt of your grave that you plowed over with the truck of your mind. You are much more than pushing overtop yourself with a wheelbarrow in which your peers reside, much more than helplessness.

So fix yourself, child, with a  _ deity _ who wishes to fix you, with a deity that has led similar people into similar prospects, and let the anger fill you.

Let the anger twist your soul into a rag to wipe its eyes with.

Let the anger pull you from the ashes of your smoldering ambitions of childhood and grasp the last ember trembling with the capacity for rebirth.

Let the anger guide you blindly fumbling into a heavenly deliverance that you have never glimpsed before.

Let the anger marry you and consummate the union with the splitting of an axe on your newfound steel body, bathed in lava and fortified by your faithful rudiarius.

Let the anger convince you of its benefits, of its potency even in the backwash of poison, of potential you could not derive from yourself.

Let the anger be the only friend you will never need, the only friend you will ever want.

Let the anger be more than the scar tissue in the matter your very own brain.

Let the anger thrive in you, plant its tendrils of power into the blankness of schizotypality until all you know is its shivering embrace.

Let the anger alchemize your fears into glass at which you can marvel under a silky blanket of stars, now polluted by the evolution of an anthropoid spleen you can never reverse.

Let the anger persuade you into cognitive reproduction to fuel an indomitable ego, an ego that may be your own, an ego that may be shared between you and your friend sprung fresh from the widely renowned throne of hell.

Let the anger be your sole cadence humming lowly under treacherous nights in the heart of  _ your  _ heart, a compendium of artificialized knowledge slammed into paper that will never compare to this deity.

Let the anger drape you in libations to your collective success and drizzle its elegant possessions with wine sour enough for inebriation.

Let the anger blindfold you from the pleas of people who never cared before, pleas for mercy, pleas for release, pleas for empty words.

Let the anger kick scotch over your grave both to wish it good riddance and to spoil the dirt in which  _ you _ spoiled before you met.

Let the anger fix you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poem written 26 May, 2016


	9. Mind Excursion | 2 Oct, 2016

Calibri always on my back what do I say this is new I feel fabricated even that felt fabricated my fingers aren't gonna keep up wow colloquial language suck my ass history teachers and engish teachers alike I don't want to go to school ut somehow it's fine brazil yellow green red morrocan flag I'm not sure maybe Romania sara how is sara doing I haven't talked to her in a while water ottle orange volleyball those kneepads stank my smile is ugly ,aye someone will find passon in it someday like allen Ginsberg with Lucien those fan edits are really heartbreaking my eyes are closed and twitching like always train ethan andrew calling me out on religion I wouldn't trae atheism for water bottles hrsfbsnfd otnsnhr shsin my fingers are umbled I can't read this by the end I haven't read it so so far the 9u matty healy George and that other gy sweaty or raughy that's it potatyoghurt became potatoyoghurt communism potatyoughurt didn't like my story too big too pretentious too beyond the point I need to fix that maybe this sunflower episode session ill chang e that street sign library news clipping I remember this all potoacopcorn potato crumbs keyboard jaidan calling me out telephone my phone is black connecting adjective gammrar linking verbs I don't care about typing this intellible anyway neck adams apple the bliss of being alive male lover mail the postman old house on blue lake what an odd name drive drive we have no drive here this is an odd sound what does this mean what if editor what if people say this wspeaker tags semicolon emojis real life emojis sppekne grantaiire ltittle shit grantaire French ames anglicized sweater glasses fake glasses head crunching ad bullied number row asdfjgkl precision to linguistic what would others think my eyes open alive fresh so much to see against the rules really acting drama hundley 19947 usty I hate dust memes backspace no backspacing here that's not allowed german flag rul breaker maybe close uoru ieyes the eyes twitching again feels uncomfortable but mandatory maybe I should open them to see what I'm doing but mac mac type2learn4th grade mac I was good atit back then fingers flying don't know how to describe lately staring in shock parst participle paris paris tree connor video games the voice of desperation how I laughed scrunch nose ther's a difference between light lbeam under door between blank that's all I am difference betwenen bite lip aw fuck what did I say? Life's not long enough to dwell on the forgotten yet I'm dwelling on the meta-aspet of it metacognition school loves itse themes I'm back closed eyes ti[[ed back the wood could kill me if I wanted it to feels odd the coldness feels oddly like a knife it could be close I don't know horse butterscotch Christmas with molly but the hatred ensued trampoline eyebrows why am I so crunched together criss cross apple sauce indian why do I wat apple christma sornament Katie the angel proprioception is interesting connecting phrase adjective dutch where did hese words come fomr I don' remember allen Ginsberg again how l window panes cigarettes dripping yellow thick like wax thick liiek books I should turn off autocorrect box boxes lowes home improvement lesbianism why do stereotypes grasyon bue carve out templates posters white crunched movers stains carpet no soda beige carpet beige is terrible but perfect beige deserves better moore pink marker whte marker magiv marker childhood disappointment autorecorrect fuck me up there's a running soundtrack would peole understand deep breaths gasp I'm fine am I really fine or lips moving I feel like Cameron ant farm Barcelona shoe smelly shoe worn tiretracks how does this make sense mind debating itself why are my lips still moving why smile nothing's happening yet the blankness of fingers taping where they are not paid attention o is starnge wall outlet why amI staring at the wall outlet door hinge black nice black not quite black like Asian hair so it is said the rpom isn't a tour I've seen it befr nothing's changed the keyboard feels unreal many years of programming yet Stephan hawking I don't know familiar phrases dutch in eed to memorize how lng is this scrunched eyes wikchma backpackapckapackacpapck tap ou rhythm band selisha therapy swim seasontoday


	10. Bioengineering

We're playing god.

They call it bioengineering.

They were always good at math and science.

I was not.


	11. Amphiboly

**Written 2 October, 2016**

**~~~~~**

I saw an amphiboly on their tongue,

late in my eleventh year,

I finally saw the cult they're among,

and then I saw only fear.

 

Eyes can be deceiving, brains can be tricked,

and humans are unaware.

In plentiful haystacks, needles aren't picked.

Treasures are left hiding there.

 

But I was commended for my knowledge,

by teachers and friends alike.

I attended philosophy's college.

I noticed the fledgling reich.

 

My identity to them was unknown.

The tyrants still offered chains.

There was no longer a concept of home.

My choices wobbled on panes.

 

By some luck, obliviousness prevailed.

My syndicate was covered.

Like myself, I had their suspicions jailed.

I was not the same infant they mothered.

 

Late night excursions became commonplace,

tossing light against the walls.

My heart tapped the underscore to a chase

when I heard them in the halls.

 

Emotions only last for so long, right?

We're all subdued for numbness.

Different kings battle as if they are kites.

We think nothing of dumbness.

 

There are many a harsh reality.

Doesn't mean we don't want change.

There's always schizotypality.

Now we live a life estranged.

 

The chains turn to bracelets; we turn to shells.

Every cycle cuts its cord.

We become acquainted with dirt and smells,

joy a waste we can't afford.

 

Is an amphiboly really a sin

when now we can't even speak?

If hypocrisy is all that is in,

how are we more than a squeak?

 

The doctrine has manifested inside me.

This is all I can suppose.

The doctors of thought endlessly chide me,

anaesthetic on my nose.

 

What more am I than broken and battered?

I used to never shed tears.

My faith in life is nothing but tattered.

Today blocks my early years.

 

I wonder what the tyrants are doing.

I wonder if they still live.

I wonder if they regret persuing

the sick gifts they chose to give.

 

My infancy was the prize to conquer.

Most shocking is the degree.

They conditioned with stories of monsters.

Who knew the monster was me?


	12. Wedding Plans

**Written in the perspective of a fictional young lesbian.**

**16 August, 2016**

**~~~~~**

The parents of a young girl are tied in the misconception that,

ever since she escaped the womb,

she has been everlastingly daydreaming about her future wedding,

about a man who will love her,

about a man who will soon come to realize that marriage is one of the devious wiles of femininity,

about a man.

 

Naturally, this is false,

an aforementioned misconception made by parents and the elderly and the bigoted,

and not that many young girls have ever thought about their wedding unless prompted by such ancient coaches.

This includes me,

although for other motivations.

 

You see,

in methods that may or may not have been obvious,

it dawned upon me that there is no use planning a wedding that will never occur.

Yes, some events are mapped out meticulously,

but that is in the assumption or the hope that they will come to pass,

but for some remarkable reason,

my wedding was not one of those events.

 

On television, anything is possible through magic,

but oftentimes we hold magic in a favorable light

unless reminded of the shadowy presence of curses.

Maybe the curse was my queer representation on TV,

maybe the curse was the obliteration of it through a carefully planned episode from behind-the-scenes conspirators who feign alliance,

maybe the curse was greedy heterosexuals claiming that what I thought of as a tragedy was only a well-deserved reprieve for them from a character they didn't like,

and maybe the curse was that those heterosexuals would never have to imagine a world where they would be in my place,

where the charming young lesbian with butterflies for fingers and nothing the world could hold against her,

the charming young lesbian who just died,

was all I had to mirror in the hungering wasteland that is media.

 

I never planned my wedding as a child,

because I was occupied by the frequent times when my fallen brothers and sisters whispered to me from their graves,

feeding me lies that I could not swallow but was forced to under the anaesthetic of Stockholm syndrome in my own house.

I would not live past twenty, they said,

but this was not the age-defying cream scientists had spent years hunting for,

yet I came to believe this nonetheless,

and through other factors I came to believe many lies that might not actually be facetious in the world in which I reside.

 

I have experienced nothing truer than the knowledge that my childhood self was smart for abstaining from wedding planning.

I was told to believe what people taught me,

and what the media taught me was that I would have no need for a wedding,

because when you are young and queer like me, no one believes you can make it.

When you are young and queer like me, no one will listen to your wedding plans anyway,

but they'd love to hear about your funeral. **  
**


	13. Hands

**Written in the perspective of a fictional boy.**

**16 September**

**~~~~~**

There's nothing wrong with being afraid of hands,

as long as you thoroughly convince yourself that you're sane.

And that's what I've been doing for a year,

jamming my fingers into my ears to block out the alternate conclusions of numerous psychologists, despite how credible they may be,

because my mind has always belonged to me,

hovering over a familiar terrain that never changes,

and if I allow doctors inside, renovations will warp the setting in which I confide

and ultimately cause my body to decay.

So I haven't been to a psychologist in seven months, and my mother is absolutely terrified of me.

But the folks I've been hanging around lately will preach that holding an authority over people based on their fear of you is the best possible position you could twist yourself into,

and one by one

more people are finding themselves a statistic to it.

There was a time when I would've abhorred this sort of behavior,

but that time is long gone.

Everyone can agree that they've changed drastically since they were a child,

and although I wasn't a child when I made the switch from joyous to cynical,

the sentiment is still there.

Now,

I frankly don't care about what I've done and what I will do.

My only goal is to avoid those hands.


	14. Tablets

**3 October**

**~~~~~**

Tablets are innovative, at least to him.

They guide him towards places beyond provincialism.

They construct a world apart from the one in which he is imprisoned because of a matrimonial whim.

They offer a life beyond the screen of fog so often witnessed.

Children will hear about tablets many times in their life. They will grow up with the familiar ringing all around them. They will devote their classes to exploring their metamorphosing infrastructure. They will recognize undeviating brands in every language. They will adapt, but maybe they will not learn.

Hospitals don't like tablets; he doesn't like hospitals.

Hospitals would rather see tablets dead than the person who craves them, but it is a taunting goal when that person craves death as well. Hospitals cut out both the result and the middleman, and the consumer is scammed once more by the faults of existence.

And despite what he has come to know, and despite hospitals' hatred of tablets, when tablets are involved, it is the hospital's job to act. They were trained in this warfare selectively.

A tablet manifested on the side table in his hospital room, in his prison cell, and he had no time to debate mistakes and intentionality.

Tablets had become a bigger part of his life than he ever knew, but unfortunately he cared not for the electronic ones.


	15. De Grote Oorlog (Nederlands/Dutch)

**Nederlandse vertaling van "The Great War"**

**Dutch translation of "The Great War"**

**~~~~~**

GOED GEWETEN: Je lastige wegen zijn behoorlijk zenuwslopend,

Ik moet zeggen dat je je werk goed doet,

maar waarom moet je mij tegenspreken

om slechte mensen te doen zwellen?

 

SLECHT GEWETEN: Ik ben het verschrikkelijke geweten,

zoals je gemakkelijk opgemerkt,

maar het is ook mijn eis

om tegen goede mensen te schreeuwen.

 

GG: Ik geloof in geluk,

in bloeiende eeuwige liefde,

dat er altijd iets voor ons zal zijn,

een altruïstische engel boven.

 

SG: Van verschrikkelijke dingen geniet je,

hoe is het in je brein?

Vreselijk leeg en vacant,

Ik zou zure regen verkiezen.

 

GG: Je kan genieten van de donder,

van emmers en emmers vol haat,

maar dat zal je nergens brengen,

iemand moet jouw manier van lopen veranderen.

 

SG: Wie ben jij om te zeggen,

hoe mijn geweten uit zal draaien?

Het wordt steeds eenvoudiger

om je te doden zonder twijfel.

 

GG: Ik ben volkomen klaar met je,

Dit kan echt niet meer,

Ik weet niet hoe ik stabiel zaken kan doen,

met degenen die een oorlog beginnen.

 

SG: Dus deze boodschap kan zijn,

laten we vermoeide soldaten elkaar de hand schudden,

het slagveld wordt vernietigd,

en ons brandende conflict wordt ingeblikt.


	16. Impostor of Youth

**3 October, 2016**

**~~~~~**

With birds in my eyes, I caged them.

Civil disobedience turns to civil war.

I don't know what I did to enrage them.

Am I the same person I was before?

 

I flexed my still strong fingers by the piano.

I held onto youth as long as I could.

Joints coughed in intervals of soprano.

Denial is a feeble hood.

 

I can ponder as long as I like.

I can truncate the candles on my cake.

Nevertheless, my feet stretch longer than my bike,

and the seat is beginning to break.

 

I'm an impostor of youth,

with many things to ignore.

I'm a shadow-eyed sleuth.

Age bitters me forevermore. **  
**


	17. The Smartest Children

**4 October**

**~~~~~**

When a child opts for death, it is no simple subject. It is not a whim that is, well, childish.

It is truly breaking past all the assurances of a better future, of what is possible if maybe you just wait a few years, of what is structured as a pleasant inevitability.

Constantly, children are told that their adult life will be magical, and the smartest of children know that it will not.

The smartest children look past being able to go to the movies by themselves, and instead focus on why the hell they're told they'd enjoy paying taxes, slaving over jobs, struggling to survive in a world they once knew as devoted to them.

The smartest children are aware that the halcyon days are the days they made the mistake of wasting on pleading for the aft.

The smartest children watch their parents with a fearful eye, and wonder if the frequent water leaks are tears of joy or rather an inability to pay maintenance bills.

The smartest children pull at themselves in the mirror in an attempt to predict what will flee first.

The smartest children listen all around for clues about what's happening, because the self-help aisle is restricted to them until they wander through the building in two decades with shackles tied around their wrists like friendship bracelets woven by their new responsibilities.

The smartest children round up their livelihoods and slaughter them for college funds, allowing the blood to decompose on the bright-colored carpet they know will soon be gone.

The smartest children poise their focus towards the televisions, towards the newspapers, towards the sky.

The smartest children feed their energy into the dynamo of adulthood when they get the chance, a plan as premature as them, a test drive in a wobbly vehicle.

The smartest children are terrified despite their efforts, with their worlds ablaze and eyes just as scalded by images too pornographic for their time.

The smartest children become the not the smartest adults, but the most _haunted_ adults, and seek a lobotomy they can't afford on a capitalist dollar treasury, wondering falsely all the while what would happen if they did more.

The smartest children prepare for their future but want nothing more than to escape it.

The smartest children see no distinction between tomorrow and a hundred years.

The smartest children opt for death.


	18. I Fell on a Museum's Sword

**4 October**

**~~~~~**

i fell on a museum’s sword

they kicked me out through blood and gore

my body dripping wine on the tile floor

i’m banned from intellect forevermore


	19. Scrap of Rejection

**4 October**

**~~~~~**

Certainly I would love to be enchanted by my fellow man,

to soak in the salt water bath of romance,

but I already carved rejection into a scrap to feed your human lust for closure.

I wonder how far the scrap made it before the bath consumed my ability to actually give a shit about people like you.


	20. Lines

**4 October**

**~~~~~**

Our concept of lines are very different,

although both can land us in therapy if we’re not careful.

Your lines are a clash of snow and metal.

My lines are a clash of my restless brain and my restless fingers.

Your lines mess with your brain.

My lines mess with other people’s brains.

Your lines are the “causes” section of the addiction pamphlet in stuffy doctor’s offices miles out from your home.

My lines are the “solutions” section.

Your lines aren’t always an _exact_ line.

My lines team up with computer systems to ensure that they are.

Your lines are a coping method.

My lines are a better one.

Your lines reserve a spot for you in the headlines of a rich white people magazine (how good it feels to be a hoodlum in their gaze).

My lines reserve a spot for me in a film adaptation.

Your lines doomed your career.

My lines _are_ my career.

Your lines killed you at adulthood.

My lines saved me _for_ adulthood.


	21. Folly

**5 October**

**~~~~~**

I wanted to be loved like there was nothing else left to do,

but I sought not the title of last resort.

A folly like that does not deserve to be minded by fate.   **  
**


	22. Bite-Sized Pieces

**5 October**

**~~~~~**

I can’t swallow pills nor my pride.

Chemical rain taps taps taps the ground.

Friends would tell me to push them aside.

Too bad my friends aren’t around.

 

However, friends write me up on stubbornness.

I’m not going down without a fight.

But fighting for the right things has gone colorless.

I glimpse the last starry night.

 

Disgust paints my reflection on the tools.

An arch-nemesis is only an old mate.

People who mind themselves are the fools.

There’s no use sustaining the wait.

 

I arrange the first dichotomy.

Folks like me need miniscule bites.

These bites will perform an oncotomy,

remove Earth’s anthropoid blights.

 

It’s fine that I’m the sole departure.

Proportions are common to me.

Life for death I can barter,

if it means that I’m finally free.

 

A wrestling match burns my throat,

but at last my stomach is down.

Just count to five as a note,

and watch fire scald the town.   **  
**


	23. Capitalism

**Excerpt from my previous book, _The Metaphysicist_**

**_~~~~~_ **

From what I can see, we are perpetually molested by capitalism, by an imposed sense of inferiority to insubstantial paper with the heads of the ancient perpetrators marked upon them to pound the notion that they are important into our mechanistic minds. There is enough for us, but alas we have not earned it through painful labor and strenuous hours, but is that not what our riots signify? Is that not the impoverished dwelling in the slums of avenues with higher prospects than filth of the lesser side? Is that not the sickness we endure and the vaccines that hide from us like we’re the monsters for desiring justice in a world where it was proven long ago that all men are created equal, for simply searching for that statement’s verity?

And yet beside the criticism we cry out! We cry out joyously at times and weep against the rain stricken parchment of our signs protesting iniquity where it is abundant. We seek justice but are barred and gagged by institution and form shoved upon us by the dictators of this system, by the demagogues with nothing more than an audience above the city streets slickened by the tears of the poor who are crushed below the upper class’ feet, but we are told that we are forever at the bottom because that is how it is supposed to be, suspended below the dirt, below the views of common people who couldn’t care less about our strife, below the views of businessmen and corporations who think that we are nothing because our lives revolve around circumstances that happen to be unfortunate, as if their lives do not do the same, as if their circumstances are nonexistent just because their circumstances are bearing.

We of the diminutive will always be plagued by the touch of capitalism who claims that they need us yet snares every chance to call us ugly when their opinions are unlatched from the ties of those who believe in a fairer government, those who will condemn businessmen for trampling the people extending their grimy fingers towards the heaven who serves as their only deliverance, who offers angels in places where they are null, who neglects the pessimism and the fraudulence of capitalists to instead bestow paradise upon those who have struggled in the tightest bonds of their enemy, and that is when they are free. That is when _we_ are free, all these fallen soldiers of the forgotten dime, all these protesters who slapped capitalism and caught the ricochet of their bullets against the industrial metal from the factories that keep us, all these paupers who never meant a thing to the upper class but meant something to themselves, all these citizens who never gave up the fight.


	24. Mom

****

**5 October**

**~~~~~**

Mom, I have to tell you something, but promise first that you won’t get mad.

Do you promise?

Forget about it. Your promises never meant anything to me once you soiled the title of mother and became more like the “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD” that tally up choreographed hushes from the others when uttered.

But I’m telling you anyway, because I’ve found a new thing called volition whose concept you never cared to share with me before.

Mom, I feel that you owe _me_ an apology, but you’re the lawyer and I’m the poet, and I doubt I will find much comfort in the stylized “v.” of a now official debate, so I’ll stick to my tactics, and you can send back the legal corrections in red.

Mom, how symphonic it was to hear your jokes about how I must’ve banged my head as a baby as if it weren’t your fault if I did, but I must’ve, as the route I tiptoe on with feet of a trained childhood is not the route either of us anticipated. I banged my head on the wall yesterday, in fact. I was sure brain damage was to come of it, but what’s addition to the bottom step, right?

Mom, I’m not sure what your intentions are. People say you’re trying your best, that your best just lacks a sense of understanding. I’m about to relay a message you’re quite familiar with yourself: try harder. You’re doing a shitty job of this trap called parenting, and somehow I’m the one who’s landed behind bars.

Mom, I want to die. Lately I’ve spun heaps of death jokes off my lips like they’re my mother tongue, but it was last year that they were genuine. The pool was not fun for two hours, or even two minutes. I plotted the possibilities of drowning with a whole audience catapulting their bodies into the water to serve as my backup performers. You heard my complaining; my will was catatonia. Apparently, so was yours.

Mom, I’m sorry about therapy. I was looking for concrete labels, and you were looking for answers regarding the mutation of a child you once coddled. I don’t talk to you. I didn’t talk to my therapist, either. It was all, “How does your anxiety feel?” and, “Much like this room, actually,” while I occasionally numbered off fragmented conspiracies about the woman lounging in the waiting area. You paid money for familial impeachment, though I’m not certain how aware you are of it.

Mom, why do you suppress your knowledge of who I really am? You’re so sure that a wedding will be held in my name (I don’t want it I don’t), but people like me plan their funerals first. You watch the news and think not of the next victim’s presence in your house. But why would you? You drive the hearse that picks me up early.

Mom, I do many things you aren’t cognizant of. You found the tatters of my shorts and the murder attempts on my legs through a middleman, yes, but you don’t know me. A pile of cans blooms out of sight from the door. I write poems about love and death and how those two overlap, and now I’m writing a poem about you. You said you always wanted to read my writing.

Mom, I’m surprised I don’t call you by your first name. Since you failed to uphold the bare minimum of what a parent should be, I am unable to consider you one. Sorry, I don’t make the rules, just get screwed by them. You’re all too acquainted with those rules, though, so I always thought that you would be my lawyer if I ever found myself thrown in the ditch of criminals, but now I see that you’re on the opposite side of the courtroom. I’m fairly educated on the government, albeit not as much as you, and flowery words can’t tie a noose around convicting words. They aren’t strong enough and I’m not strong enough and the scissors weren’t strong enough but that’s all over now. You can rest, and I can be eternally bothered by the snoring floating up from the floor.

Mom, why do you persecute me in my own home? I lock both the door and my heart from you. I hoard food up here despite your protests, because if you find protests to be ineffective and obnoxious, then I’ll pretend just this once to be an obsequious child in order to sharpen the tools of manipulation I picked up along the thorn-ridden path. Does danger charge you? In my earlier days, I cracked under pressure, but now the only thing cracking is the plastic bag in my hands as I tote it upstairs (god I wish it were around my head).

Mom, I wish there were a deodorant for the soul so that I could smear it up and down the torture chamber you call a body. Your lips reek of lies, reek of lipstick in the shade of deceit, reek of empty words and fallacy, reek of the void, and until now I had just gotten used to the smell. I’m not a child anymore, although you pray every night that I could be. I’m not stupid. You know this.

Mom, do you enjoy my writing style? I’d love for it to be compared to Rimbaud or Ginsberg or something you read in high school, where you absorbed your provincialism, and maybe you can sprinkle in another little story about your French teacher while you’re at it.

Mom, are you crying? Good. Multiply your tears by a hundred, press them on paper, and then you’ll know me.  **  
**


	25. The Ideal Student

**6 October**

**~~~~~**

The ideal student dreamed about all of this since the beginning; it couldn’t have gone any other way.

The ideal student never complained as a child (how wonderful things were back then).

The ideal student cut himself on trees every Saturday afternoon and knew just the remedy to solve it but still needed his mother to apply the bandage (one day he will learn).

The ideal student joined the local baseball team as a young boy so that he could strengthen his arm for raising it in class.

The ideal student breaks all habits except the routines of the conservative money-maker: go to church, find yourself in bed at 8:30, study until your brain is rewired into either metal or a medal, spend more time in the library than in your right mind.

The ideal student lives the Red Scare every day, especially when he’s alone in his bath of gold, clutching the soap of capitalism to cleanse himself of the thoughts, but wondering if soap is toxic enough to give him escape from the trap called hierarchical wealth.

The ideal student’s IQ should always be higher than him.

The ideal student doesn’t talk back, but the ideal student can defend himself, and has memorized the levels of blurriness lines can possess.

The ideal student is educated on politics yet avoids controversial debates (there are much better topics, such as healthy food choices in the cafeteria and threats to the aristocracy of America).

The ideal student is a caterer who is banned from flames.

The ideal student always cites his sources as somewhere other than his own mind.

The ideal student throws away his dreams but never throws away his old papers because he’ll need them later — to light a fire when he can’t pay his heating bills on a “when I was your age” salary.

The ideal student shoots for the Ivy League and is inevitably too bare for it, but the scholarship is kind to him because the ideal student is white.

The ideal student values himself above the plebeians because that is what he is taught, and the ideal student’s body functions on caffeine, ramen, and compliance.

The ideal student loves his country for killing him.

The ideal student’s hair is not nearly as vibrant as it was as a kid, and his skin is not nearly as smooth, as the ideal student devotes all his time to academics and not to self-maintenance.

The ideal student drowns himself in coffee every morning but preaches abstinence from drugs, though the ideal student has to bend a few rules to remain on his toes.

The ideal student runs his passions through a rickety old machine each day to shred them into paper bills and survival (aren’t we so lucky to be alive).

The ideal student volunteers at churches and helps the elderly avoid being swept away in the liberal bustle of the streets, all the while wishing _he_ could be — the car horns are a perfect requiem for the ideal student who must plot his death to the sound of Brahms.

The ideal student can’t be deaf like Beethoven.

The ideal student’s packing list includes a textbook for each class, bed sheets, and a chronic mental illness.

The ideal student worships the institution.

The ideal student is not a poet, nor an artist, nor a human at all, rather an engineer fascinated with all types of machines, fascinated with what he has become (adults say he’s become a bright young man, and the ideal student is encouraged to agree).

The ideal student plays the piano or the violin or the game called life, and he and his ancestors have struck a monopoly on the board.

The ideal student is scared of failure and the government.

The ideal student is out of college and into the workforce by 28, and for once he misses his chance of joining a club.

The ideal student adores math so he can figure out an equation for the required “serendipity” of his existence.

The ideal student becomes the ideal worker, the ideal military man, the ideal business mogul, the ideal husband, the ideal human.

The ideal student owns a beautiful home but would prefer the grave to the suburbs.

The ideal student wins the game in adults’ perspectives, and is on square one in his.

The ideal student is relatable because the ideal student is an all-too-real representation of institutional backwash.

The ideal student hopes for everything in life, but the ideal student knows where to stop.  


	26. 27

**6 October**

**~~~~~**

My mom encouraged me to join more clubs.

How about 27?   **  
**


	27. Quaint

**6 October**

**~~~~~**

I wrote flowers on the board of the English room my teacher told me to take them down I’m not sorry.

I’m no Kerouac and I shouldn’t have to be.

Would adults like my prose? I’m not school appropriate I might be a communist.

I’ve written novels.

Teachers wouldn’t like them, wouldn’t approve. My words are queer and so are my characters. My feedback would be an appointment slip to the counselor. I swear I’m okay I have a high IQ.

I’ve written poems.

Which one should I read to the class on October 14th? I may not be seen the same way again but my actions are already rebellious. I’ve watched the movies I know how it goes.

I wake up in the dark and children scream in my ears.

Worrying about college is commonplace.

America what have you done to me?

I’m scheduling a heart attack at age 32. I hope the funeral home is kind enough to supply me with a pencil -- or a fountain pen because I’m pretentious. My fingers move restless in the grave. I can continue to write obscenities in a sacred place. I’ll throw a party in Hell if I’m lucky but it’ll just be a poetry reading about cock.

Maybe the fire-drinkers want prose, eh? I have many a tale of death in which I use the full line.

I can’t touch my toes but that’s alright. My meanest friend says I have grubby hands anyway. Our article of the week was about antibacterial soaps and how they’re as ineffective as persuasion against me. I’m educated about this. My mom’s a lawyer I come prepared.

Hipsters killed my crops. They said farming is too mainstream I lit their cigarettes on fire again I won’t apologize.

I’ve been drowned by new visions and left out to dry.

What’s in your alphabet soup? How many letters does it take to pound shrieks out of schoolteachers? It’s a case study don’t worry about my intentions.

I hide soda cans in my room and the only thing that spills on the floor is my laughter I prefer it to Mozart.

Quaint -- what a nice word I guess you could say it’s just that.

I was betrayed in preschool and now I’m insane.

How do numbers even work in Dutch? Confusion is all I can figure out, but I still failed that word on the test.

There’s a deer galloping through the field over there do you see it?

Step on the break I’m getting out.

Who else notices the texture of the ground? I could go back in time here and skin my knees once or twice just to say I’ve lived wouldn’t that be hilarious. **  
**


	28. I Jumped off the Roof

**7 October**

**~~~~~**

I jumped off the roof at as a child.

Contrary to popular belief, I did not fly.

I crashed down and picked a frown,

and if I'm edgy, then that's the reason why.


	29. Love Once More

**7 October**

**~~~~~**

My foot’s asleep almost as much as my emotions.

I already wept blood in the war.

This cannot be remedied with potions.

I just need to love once more.  


	30. Intelligence Quantified

**7 October**

**~~~~~**

My motives “fucked the police”.

My peers continue to excel.

I turn to spite as a mouthpiece.

But, hey, at least I can spell.

 

I never study for assessments.

I don’t lose years over stress.

I make no intellectual investments.

I’m more popular in my personal press.

 

My teachers know I’m not stupid.

Most adults believed it back then.

I’m a history major’s cupid.

I still remember where I’ve been.

 

Contradiction is my life’s foundation.

I am aware of my own match.

Society is my decline’s causation.

Out of the lies I did myself snatch.

 

Adults don’t know much about me,

but I’m not their reading material.

My lack of work shown is all they can see.

Opinions are solely criterial.

 

I’m a Harvard student in my own little world.

I’m not sure how much that counts for.

My brain is a treasure I’ve pearled.

I know myself down in my core. **  
**


	31. Bikes Took Us Far

**7 October**

**~~~~~**

The night howled in our ears down the street,

bike tires clicking a tune.

Adventure was the feast we were planning to eat.

Our candles were slabs of the moon.

 

The waves threw themselves at our feet.

In this kingdom we crowned ourselves kings.

Every sight and smell was a treat.

We were our own nicotine and smoke rings.

 

One of us was absorbed in his phone,

but I only thought of this moment.

Through my hair had the tides of wind blown.

Of experience I was a faithful proponent.

 

We giggled and laughed and cackled.

We lapped up the spillages of folly.

We had never felt so unshackled.

We saw many an onlooker from Raleigh.

 

I hate the people I traveled with,

but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

My chants were a tapestry of unraveled width.

To those joys I will always cling.

 

I tested my strength on the pull up bar.

I cared little about how it all went.

My toes on the beach, my eye was a star.

My worries were hammered and bent.

 

At some points I was a good Samaritan.

We offered humor and food for a man.

Kind deeds on that night were like keratin,

responsibilities dumped in the trash can.

 

We knew the police would be coming.

Eleven was when the moment ended.

As the street cleared, silence was humming.

This experience I had befriended.

 

It was then that we said our goodbyes,

with guts aching from sonorous laughter.

We planted the hope for reprise,

but there would be no comparison after.

 

I was abandoned on my way back home,

but I didn’t mind and instead ruminated.

Glee was introduced to the catacomb.

A ten out of ten the night was rated. **  
**


	32. Conserving My Anger

**7 October**

**~~~~~**

I made a homosexual banner for the hallway.

A conservative shot it down.

I told him to go back to his Bible.

He told me to go back to hell.

 

I assailed him with my ceaseless laughter.

“Thanks to you, sir, I live on the streets.”

He didn’t seem to care.

But then again, conservatives have their plantations.

 

I was sordid in his eyes,

but eyes as muddy as his don’t count for shit.

That’s not to say I’m _not_ sordid at times, though.

I’ve done some wild stuff.

 

I have no respect for my clothing.

Anything with paint on it is art.

My childhood slide was the gutter.

You can see how that turned out.

 

I considered purporting to be a communist,

just to spark his heart attack early,

but this is school, and I’m working towards college.

Outside this place...who knows?

 

I sent him on his way,

with a smile and a wink and a jeer.

Conservatives are so fucking tiring.

The banner heals itself.


	33. An Introvert's Guide to Breaking the Ice

**8 October**

**~~~~~**

I brought a hammer so we could break the ice.

Apparently hammers aren’t welcome here.

But I haven’t listened to anyone’s advice.

I spend my entire life holed in fear.

 

What do I say to this person,

whose person I have never met?

Is there any way this conversation could worsen?

I’m not a gambler, but I’m willing to bet.

 

How about I surprise them with a random fact?

“Cannibalism is legal if you find the prey already dead.”

Now they’re probably anticipating an attack.

What the hell is wrong with my head?

 

Their frown I should’ve expected.

No one responds well to my choices.

I’ve been far too much protected.

I’m hearing my consciences’ voices.

 

“So what are your thoughts on old-fashioned money?”

Was that line even any better?

My eyes and legs are getting a bit runny.

I’m shredding myself like smooth, pliant cheddar.

 

The silence is too much for me,

even if silence is usually my closest friend.

The exit offers a chance to be free.

Fortunately, the discussion comes to an end.

 

I’ll be cringing at that encounter every day.

Talking to people can be pretty rough.

I didn’t mess up too much, I pray.

Now is the ice cracked enough?


	34. Brave

**brave**

/brāv/

_ adjective _

 

  * **what you call someone if they happen to not kill themselves.**



 

 


	35. A Bar on Main Street

**8 October**

**~~~~~**

I’m in drag. This is not who I am.

I walk the parallels of sidewalk on my way downtown,

my face done up in a mask worthy of applause.

My hair’s cohesive structure is performed by paralyzing fear.

Everything is dramatized.

I’m a good actor with many a show under my belt.

I’ve played the game more than once.

 

In sixth grade, my friend asked if my ankles ever froze.

I laughed and criticized her inquiry.

Now every ripple inside me is from a nearly glaciated lake,

and even my ankles fall victim to the chill.

I taught myself to be thrifty,

so my brows are arthritic daggers of ice,

and I require no more lipstick to hide the blueberry painted on me.

Nights of unsettled alertness shade my lids in noir.

My contour is the malnutrition I greet while striding into my escape.

My chamber is pulverulent and pulverized.

 

This is a shady place

of people lending each other orgasms in the bar at midnight,

while the boots of the music stomp to their underage heartbeats.

They have never felt more alive,

and I have never felt more confused.

Where is a howl to the moon when I need one?

Where is a cigarette when I don’t?

 

I steal the attention as I step inside,

yet it seems like no one cares.

Skulls swivel in all directions at once.

My mind is bogged. My head is fogged.

I grab a seat by the bar,

where the youth dies youthful

by choking on tongue.

 

I used to be a Catholic,

but now I read the Satanic Bible on weekends.

This place is perfect for me,

but nothing is ever truly perfect.

This is a den of the ambiguous,

of actions and words and feelings alike.

It’s not safe to be here,

but my lease on safety is up.

 

I weave circuits through the crowd,

a thrashing wave of deviants.

What do I hope to collect from them?

What treasures do they store in tiny boxes under their bed

which they have deserted because they are no longer restful

but still remember with memories as vivid as the various colors

of their glee?

 

Perhaps I should not be so condemning

when the sun was born in their eyes

and the sun died in mine.

The tang of apples pops on their lips.

Smoke looms a fuliginous wig for them.

Their laughter is nicotine to their companions.

What can _I_ present for comparison?

My fearful cynicism?

 

Nevertheless, I am not at home.

I am an outsider to their group.

I stay back and observe,

take a trip to near drunkenness,

think about pretentious shit like small towns,

and maybe I don’t have to give a fuck for a while.

 

Pleasance is a feeling experienced here,

as passive as sentences tacked to the walls.

“I was fucked by institution,” one says.

“You were fucked by virginity more,” calls another,

and drinks and good humor rock the table,

but no one is seasick.

This does not indicate whether or not I follow them.

 

If I sell myself to the same benzedrine the others lap up,

can I, too, join the club?

I don’t want a 27 epitaph.

I just want the opposite: to live,

and to live freely, and to live extraordinarily,

and to live forever intoxicated by libertine whiskey.

And if this club offers great deals

worthy of frugal extremists,

I’m in.

 

However, a certain dilemma continues to reign

under the gaslights of Main Street

from some neglected universe where each passerby

is equally as forgotten as the last.

I sink in the seats at the bar,

and sink my teeth into hangover apprehensions.

Nobody invites me over, but everybody notices.

Hypervigilance crowned itself king when happy hour lapsed into sinister,

and I don’t know where I belong.

 

This is no stage for performances in drag,

yet all folks wear outrageous more flamboyantly than I.

They choose not to be humble,

basking in the garish and the gaunt,

kissing their own asses in fornication with a dying god

who makes way for the religion of anarchy until four in the morning.

 

Bodies blend and clash. Bruises lounge under unconcealed textiles.

Lushes of pre-cum lip gloss spout poems

like trains hustling towards the climax.

Drinking stimulates thinking.

The souls of this gym hunt the profound.

 

I would love to live like them. I would love to love like them.

They congeal all representations of art and fuck themselves in the ass with it every Friday.

They make plans for a godless existence.

I would ask, “What must I give to be a part of this?”

but it is only giving away my hesitations.

Reservations of doubt instead seize their land again.

 

I watch from my place at the bar,

reach for a drink almost as strong as my will,

watch the scenes of this psychological thriller.

Blockbuster madhouses are to become of these anchorless casanovas,

but what is to become of me?


	36. unrelated lowercase title

**9 October**

**~~~~~**

i.

chromium,

silver slivers of cat iris,

metal composition of

parenthetical habitat.

i hated my science teacher,

barren wasteland on his skull

every weekend.

people like him exist here,

people i hate.

when will i escape this small town?

 

ii.

part two is worse than the first,

says the rhyme of my youth.

i abhor arbitrary standards.

collective makes us all equal,

evil.

karl marx protects my kinks

from capitalists.

i write in lowercase

because i hate

those capitalists.

white is my preferred hue.

i find purity in it.

 

iii.

i stare out the panes

into pain

and a world on fire,

a war of abstract art

and societal standards.

i abandoned them early.

early bird catches the worm

and not cholera,

but society is sickness enough.

 

iiii.

metanoia:

has no definition.

make one for yourself.

break past bonds,

live freely,

spread your wings,

dearest winter snowflake.

clear out the contents

of your house

but not of your soul.

choke on plants,

you beautiful flower.

cannibalism is legal here.

 

iiiii.

the power flew away for a moment,

like all of my friends,

but now it is back,

unlike all of my friends.

i resorted to an amish lifestyle.

(i know what poverty looks like

on other occasions besides

this one.

sometimes i don’t have my laptop

at all).

i reached hesitantly for

a paper and notebook.

i dreamed of paper cuts

but was once again

too scared.


	37. Mental Excursion | 9 Oct, 2016

I’m back at it again damn Daniel white vans whiteness tumblr poetry suck black ass eyebrow corn fields montana Hannah Indiana killing herself every day chainsaw brother tape my stupid brother doesn’t know shit about girls garages stil lily pullitzer no vera Bradley anne need to fix shit dog purse need to look through it my fingers moving stragely weird sound isn’t it strange computer notification how back rubbing on wooden shit lost my train of thought hahahahhaha we are aware of lots of things we have mmetacgnitive abilities I can’t last for five minutes why did I follow the advice of the book lowe’s staring chainsaw shower did he shower he’s gonna get rekt by emma god her brother is annoying bings me back to cougar quest what the fuck was u with that cougar crap as Miriam says what a gem she is I can’t post to my story anymore without feeling unsafe head rock back adrock m lima that mattress is fucked paris moulin rouge should I watch the movie my resting bitch face turns to sadness ut sadness I guess face scrunch eyes thin like cat daggrs was never something was never something idk car engine what is that not supposed to check the time hundley but whatever it’s goooooood geode gute morgen hoi hej Danish is too much and I thught I would be excited bootleg veggie straws my throat hurts pepto bismol can’t save leather shoe me now what is he doinnnnnnng isn’t he supposed to be swimming god I lucked out fucj you stott the thouhts give me chils don’t bring themup WHO IS DYING IN THAT ROOM WHAT VIDEO GAME IS THAT YOU HAVE A GAME ROOM COBS how will that look to the wattpaers sorry cant look at the screen ut Lucien says u gotta break the law dutch u why the fuck seems lie internet slang but then again so does all of dutch like twelve year old’s typos eh second time TEN SECONDS ew colloquial fuck u jeff we’re done


	38. Drummer

**9 October**

**~~~~~**

I am a man of flaunted character.

I greet random people for laughs.

With the tune of humor I sang to her,

and the river of humans merged paths.

 

Formal conversations select a form

of grammar and exclamation marks.

but soon it was like living in the same dorm.

On each other we left watermarks.

 

Life with her was radiant.

We were gears supporting each other.

Days passed by as if a gradient.

My heart wandered towards no other.

 

Her name is synonymous with drummer,

and pound at my heartbeat she did.

I was her melodious hummer.

Into something greater I slid.

 

Through a cry came miscommunication.

My crime of love I did confess.

But love is a pit of damnation.

I shouldn’t have expected less.

 

My demons found no match.

Apparently I was being misled.

A shadowed exterior my heart did then snatch.

I was waiting for an, “Off with his head!”

 

She struggled with the concept for a while.

My certainty began to quake.

There was no longer a reason to smile.

It seemed I had made a mistake.

 

The floods of compliments soon met a dam.

Our patterns soon met a change.

On the breaks my pleasure did slam,

tacitly agreed to estrange.

 

Perhaps she should’ve known better

than to break the heart of an artist.

Our ties had no suicide letter.

Figuring this out would require the smartest.

 

Maybe you could say I’m a scholar,

but for this I had no solution.

My brain has grown smaller and smaller.

Euphoria is an adequate pollution.

 

Of denial she registered as minister.

We became nothing more than strangers.

Her jeers crawled into sinister.

It is friendship my emotion endangers.

 

Her disposition I did not know.

but tears still flooded my prison.

Should I hope for remission or should I go?

It was time to make a decision.

 

All it would take was a flick of the hand,

one simple and accurate touch.

The words I could barely understand.

The sign was written in Dutch.

 

Strange feelings organized my baptism.

My enchantress was so abruptly gone.

I pondered while flopping in lachesism,

Had I done to her something wrong?

 

Alas I already saw my actions’ stare.

Is that a cowardly thing to say?

Perhaps it is, but I don’t care.

I doubt she’d want to see me anyway.

 

I learn to move from the past,

as any creator should.

But this heartbreak will not be the last.

For now I live in childhood.

 

Although the tides swept it away,

I loved the fabric of that summer.

For her wisdom and beauty I pray.

My wonderful Pierian drummer.


	39. Old Money

**10 October**

**~~~~~**

I don’t care about your old money.

I’m a raging bohemian liberal.

I find provincial jokes unfunny.

I have many an idea in my peripheral.

 

Who watches the news stations anyway?

We’re all self centered here; it’s okay to admit it.

There’s a new death controversy every day.

The anchors ignore who really did it.

 

I switch off the TV set when I see those disgraces.

Minimalism is what millennials are bound to.

I care not for bigotry’s embraces.

I have things I need to get around to.

 

You waste your time, sir, with your living area.

I’m out slaving over college.

Who is the one wracked by hysteria?

Who is the one with diligence knowledge?

 

You Republicans are sickening, all of you.

You complain about poverty under chandeliers.

I’m aghast at the numbers who follow you.

Under your reign, millennials shed your tears.


	40. Jailbreak

**21 May**

**Later formatted to prose in _The Metaphysicist_**

**~~~~~**

Stripped of dignity,

we paint with crimson blood and cascading tears

smeared across canvases as broad as the institutions that kept us in tight locks,

in cells and in chambers

and in our own flaking minds

whose only deliverance is the knife of revenge

where finally the fluid chipped is not our own,

the carbon monoxide agony of twenty-seven airplanes buzzing chaotically

in freedom and in yelps,

one for each year we were imprisoned

and for the year that we became free,

sputtering in long awaited asphyxiation,

where the grave is the best location we can attain for matter destroyed by tantalizing objections

and taunting whispers of what could be

but what hasn’t been for a while,

sculpting features into daggers to impress squares,

huffing paint in a back alleyway and hoping to be arrested because prison has better food than food for thought,

though we have been starving for a while

— starved of our confidence,

starved of our trust,

starved of nostalgic nights under blankets and peaceful misconceptions

in the burrows of Roanoke,

where our bedtime story was the shrieking of our sisters against trees

that slit their names into their mahogany wrists to force them to stay,

where morals stride unquenched through bustling city streets,

where our ears cloud over with soot to neglect the pleas of our mothers ordering us to wash the dishes left dirty from the mercurial age of thirteen,

pubescence clenched between teeth wracked in the standardized wires of conformity

who also conform solely by existing,

who serve as a role model imposed by idols creasing with each lie they fold under their skin to contemplate later,

but none of that pulls at us in quite the same way that the moon pulls at the tides,

for this is not born from control.

This is the rebellion we have created,

and this is our jailbreak after years of suppression.


	41. Speak My Name

**11 October**

**~~~~~**

You spoke my name like there was fire on your tongue.

I was sanctified in Hell.

You loved it.

I was too spicy for the average Caucasian to savor,

but you were no conformist.

 

Fury brought another palette of connotations.

This time, the fire was in your soul,

and not in my name.

You disregarded all dispositions retained towards me,

because on those occasions they were beside the point.

I quivered in the earthquake of your larynx

and your lungs and your passion,

head drawn like curtains to protect myself.

 

In melancholy came brittleness.

You tasted the ruins of your own earthquake,

and sought with trust my help,

a last resort I felt obligated to attend.

I gathered the fragments of a once stable soul,

snatched bites of tape,

and did what I could.

My name never wore fragility quite like that.

 

Joy took a pleasant turn,

as the associations suggest.

Ecstasy trumped all lipstick when paired with my name.

Summer meadows and dawn,

dew crystallizing your eyes.

Contentment stretched over the horizon.

Is this what music is?


	42. Happy Birthday

**11 October**

**~~~~~**

Happy birthday, bitch.

Congratulations on escaping the womb!

I love when my life is made arduous

by lazy brats who exfoliate their feet

in their beds.

I really appreciate your presence in my life

which will be shortened because of the stress

you place upon me.

 

Happy birthday, bitch.

You should’ve _stayed_ in the womb.

Unfortunately, everyone makes mistakes.

Your mother just happened to make a colossal one,

but it’s not like I care for your mother anyway.

 

Happy birthday, bitch.

In sixth grade, I wished you the same twice.

Once on your actual birthday,

and again when you finally got around to celebrating it

— on _my_ birthday.

We had a great time, though, didn’t we?

 

Happy birthday, bitch.

This day marks the genesis of another year of torment.

You’ve leveled up into supreme bossiness.

Puberty’s gift to you is an even louder voice

so you can saw my ears off with your shrieking.

I’ve always admired Van Gogh.

 

Happy birthday, bitch.

Perhaps this year your present will be a top lip.

I can see that you’re in dire need of one.

Genetics weren’t very kind to you,

but that’s nothing money can’t solve, right?

Too bad money can’t solve your rotten heart.

A real pity.

 

Happy birthday, bitch.

Am I the only one wondering how many you’ll receive?

Hopefully not a whole lot.

I’m definitely not the only one _praying_ for the same thing.

Not even your own mother likes you.

 

Happy birthday, bitch.

Make it a memorable one.


	43. Love

Sometimes I see it in criminal acts when my glasses stretch over hospital beds unused, allowing for libertine hallucinations, pulled through the gate and hidden in the hedges shaped perfectly enough for espionage. _Who told me I could look?_

I see it in the sun when it remembers my name, and the days when charring sojourns in my hostel for only a few nights and days.

I see it in the stars spelling poems from familiar names.

I see it in prohibited tongue and all other such languages, and I see it from the sidelines in the punishment of the trilled R and the guttural G.

I see it in lacking.

I see it all around as a dye for oxygen and nitrogen and the other 0.96% of our humanity.

I see it in words you can’t pronounce but can feel pooled at your feet rising higher like steam.

I see it in each day checked off “bless you” calendars.

I see it in Jackson Pollock paintings of high-end camouflage on a Picasso face, and the leaves of artificial pomegranate that follow with avenues of confidence being unmasked by the second.

I see it in the common man’s sherpa.

I see it in drawn-out nights, sometimes by the window as zoo animals rock down spines and into diaphragms.

I see it in restless promenades through merchants and merchants and merchants on the hunt for a reminder of everything encompassed in this emotion.

I see it in subconscious domestic surgeries.

I see it in every ounce of wind pounded from stomachs trying to become bigger than what they actually are, and what they are is ambitious.

I see it in careful selection on trips unintended for what the mind now hovers over.

I see it in the rivers of a human’s soul, where they inflect.

I see it at the deathbed always accompanied.

Love.


End file.
